Shadowbrook (38 page)

Quent found his voice and spoke to her, not to Thoyanoguin. “You said you expected me to take a horse when I left Shadowbrook, that the reason you took Pohantis’s clothes was so you could ride. But there’s no—”

Nicole interrupted him. “No sidesaddle fit for a lady in your stable. I know, Little George told me that weeks ago. It doesn’t matter. When we lived in Ruthven, near the barracks, the soldiers amused themselves by teaching me. I can ride astride like a man, even bareback.”

Not in a Quaker frock she couldn’t. “Then go change. Hurry.” Then, to Esther: “I need two horses.” There was a wide and decent path between here and Bright Fish Water, and much as he would like the feel of her mounted behind him, two horses carrying single loads would make far better time. “I did not bring money, but I will pay when I return.”

“Thee can have whatever thee needs from this place and welcome, Quentin Hale.”

He turned to Thoyanoguin. “When I get to Bright Fish Water I will need a canoe.”

“It is waiting for you already. Ahkwesahsne.” In the place where the partridge drums.
“Tyientaneken kanehsatake”
Two logs side by side on the crusty sands. “Follow in the direction they point. The canoe is well hidden, but because you know it is there, you will find it. And there are two paddles,” Thoyanoguin added, nodding toward Nicole with satisfaction.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1754
MONASTERY OF THE POOR CLARES, QUÉBEC

TO PAD ALONG
a rough stone floor in your bare feet was not much of a penance in September, even in New France. When she was a child, a little girl in the great château on the banks of the Loire, Mère Marie Rose used to get up in the middle of a winter’s night and test her fortitude by walking barefoot through the icy corridors and halls, always careful to avoid the rugs. Once, in February, she went outside and challenged herself to do the same along the frozen riverbank. Petí, her beloved
bonne d’enfant,
caught her that time, and there was no
goûter
for a week Mère Rose smiled slightly remembering Petí, who always smelled of powder and cloves, and the afternoon snacks of childhood, warm milk with honey and buns topped with fresh butter or sweet preserves.

It was twenty-two years since she had tasted such things, since she was fifteen and the cloister door of the Poor Clares of Montargis was closed and locked behind her.
At least the Ursulines, her mother had begged. Or the Benedictines. If you insist on pursuing this madness, choose a convent where you need not endure so much.
But her mother would surely have agreed that the stone floor of the tiny monastery in Québec Lower Town presented no hardship in the middle of a September night. Besides, there was never very far to walk in this hovel of a monastery.

Summer and winter alike, moments after every midnight of the year, after they had slept for three hours, the abbess of the Poor Clare Colettines of Québec woke her daughters and led them to prayer. They reached the door of the chapel, wheree Mère Marie Rose paused and dipped her right forefinger in the holy water stoup and made the sign of the cross. In winter when the holy water froze and not a drop adhered to her finger she made the gesture anyway, and each of the four nuns behind her did the same.

The nuns entered the chapel in single file, each pausing to bow deeply from the waist in front of the tabernacle before taking her place in the facing rows of wooden boxes called choir stalls. Since they were five altogether, there were two nuns on one side, three on the other. The asymmetry disturbed Mère Marie Rose.

Le bon Dieu
had promised her a postulant. He had spoken to her as plainly as anyone could wish.
I am sending you another daughter to be consumed in the flames of my love.
She had even shared the joyous news with the community and with Père Antoine. Where was she, this sixth offering of prayer and penance?

“O Lord, open my lips and my mouth shall declare Your praise.” Soeur Marie Joseph, the cantor, had a lovely voice. She intoned the great antiphon of Matins, the First Hour of the new day, and the assembled nuns answered with the opening psalm,
“Confitebor tibi quia terribiliter magnificatus es …”
I will praise You for You are terrible and magnificent …

Their chant was tremulous in the candlelit dark Only Joseph could truly sing, and Mère Rose and her nuns did not spend hours in practice, like the proud Benedictines for whom the perfection of each note was a sacred duty. But all of them knew their chant rose from their hearts to heaven on a direct course.
“Nonne qui oderunt te Domine oderam?”
Have I not hated them that hated You?

Midway through the third psalm of the Matins office a red haze obscured the words on the page of Mère Rose’s Psalter. The abbess closed her eyes and continued to chant from memory. She plunged into the haze, offering herself to appease God’s wrath. Flames. A river of blood. What did they signify? Tell me, my good God. Tell me what I must know. There was no answer, only the chants of Matins: Taste and see that the Lord is sweet. Magnify His name with me.

The visions had begun when she was a little girl. She had only to dose her eyes to see twisting, writhing souls in torment surrounded by slavering demons. And holding back the demons, a circle of women wearing black veils that fell in soft folds to their shoulders, and rough gray robes tied with knotted white cords, and nothing on their feet. But the women could not join hands to close the circle and release the souls from their agony. They stretched as far toward each other as they could, but one person was missing. The little girl who would grow up to be Mère Rose had always known the brown-clad nuns were waiting for her.

These days she saw other things. Red men, savages who did not know Jesus Christ and His Church and who were therefore unable to enter heaven, who must remain in emptiness and nothingness for all eternity. Their sadness and loss overwhelmed her. Their ignorance appeared to her as a great boulder blocking the mouth of a cave, preventing the light from entering. Oh my God … only one more. One more. To roll back the great stone of unbelief, just one more woman was needed. Preferably young and beautiful and pure, and willing to offer herself in total sacrifice.

Half an hour later the prayers of Matins ended. The nuns knelt in their stalls, waiting for the abbess to give the signal for them to rise. It did not come. Soeur Marie Celeste was vicaress, Mère Rose’s second in command. She glanced at the abbess and saw that her eyes were still tightly shut, as they had been for much of the Office. Celeste waited a few moments more. It was the abbess who should lead them from the chapel back to their cells, to the three hours’ sleep that comprised the second part of the night’s rest for Poor Clares of the strict observance. The abbess did not move.
Eh bien,
such things were common with
la bonne Mère.
She was a chosen soul. Celeste stepped out of her choir stall and Marie Angelique, Marie Françoise, and Marie Joseph followed her. The four processed from the chapel and, as happened so often, left the abbess motionless and entranced.

The front door of the monastery was made of brawny planks of oak bound with hammered iron. It was locked and barred, and however many times Quent beat his fist against it there was no response. “Here,” Nicole said. “We must try here. It is called the turn.”

He did not answer her—they had barely spoken for days—but he looked at what appeared to be a small barrel set into the wall next to the door. A heavy brass bell hung beside the barrel’s rounded bulge. Nicole took hold of the leather pull and shook it vigorously. A few moments later, though they could see no one, they heard a voice.
“Laudate Jesum Christum.”
Praised be Jesus Christ.

“Per omnia saecula saeculorum,”
Nicole said. World without end.

“Qu’ est-ce que vous voudrais, madame?”
Angelique’s heart was thudding against her chest. The accent of this visitor was not that of the locals. And she was young. Mère Rose had been saying for months that a postulant would come to join them. Perhaps today—

“I wish to be one of you,” Nicole said. “To become a Poor Clare.”

Angelique clasped her hands in excitement, then pressed them to her mouth to stifle a gasp. Praised be Jesus Christ indeed!
“Un moment, ma petite. Ne quittez pas.”
The words tumbled out of Marie Angelique in an urgent rush. “One moment only. Do not go.
Un moment!”

The little nun hurried from the turn and ran toward the chapel. It was early dawn and the high windows of the small choir let in a few beams of pink-tinged light. One seemed to be resting directly on the abbess, kneeling exactly as she had been when Matins and then the first Office of the day, Lauds, had finished. Angelique was not surprised. When
ma mère
was taken in this manner she could not control the length of what she called the wound of love. But for this … she would wish to be told this at once.

Angelique paused just long enough for a deep bow before the tabernacle, then
turned and walked quickly to Mère Rose’s stall. Her bare feet made no sound on the uneven stones.
“Ma Mère,”
she whispered. “I humbly beg you to forgive this interruption, ma Mère, but—”

“So she has come at last,” Marie Rose said, opening her eyes. “Thanks be to God.”

Quent lingered in the shadows at the rear of the chapel.

“Magnificat anima mea Dominum.”
My soul doth magnify the Lord. The chant rose from behind the closely placed and heavily curtained iron bars that backed the altar. “He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name.”

The disembodied voice behind the turn had given Nicole a worn old prayer book. All her responses were written there, the nun said. Nicole held the prayer book now, but as fer as Quent could tell she wasn’t looking at it.

“Quia respexit humilitatem ancillae suae,”
the voices behind the bars chanted. He has looked on the lowliness of his handmaiden.

“Ecce enim ex hoc beatam me dicent omens generationes,”
Nicole replied. She spoke the words clearly, without hesitation. All generations will call me blessed.

Sweet God Almighty, what kind of religion was this that locked women up behind iron bars and called it virtue? He couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her in this place. It was dim. Nicole was meant for sunlight and laughter. For Shadowbrook. Not to be locked up forever a virgin. Was their world filled only with women? Perhaps not. A tall gaunt man dressed in a brown robe was kneeling in the tiny chapel. He seemed unaware of Quent’s presence, but he hadn’t taken his eyes off Nicole.

She was wearing the gray Quaker dress that Esther Snowberry had given her and she’d entirely hidden her hair under the plain white mobcap. She was nonetheless so beautiful she took his breath away. Maybe more beautiful than he’d ever seen her, glowing with happiness. She knelt in front of the small altar, gazing intently at a golden box.

Quent clenched his fists to stop himself from striding forward and carrying her away from this superstition and Catholic deviltry. There was no point. She was doing what she wanted to do. Damn you, Nicole. The devil take you. I’ll not beg you to change your mind.

Still, he couldn’t leave while he could yet look at her, kneeling with her head bowed in prayer so he could see the tender place at the back of her neck. A bird or birds, a hawk, a bear, a river of blood. Two almost identical dreams told to him by two entirely different men. What did it all mean? In spite of his distaste for popery, Quent found himself gazing at the altar and praying for an answer.

Père Antoine was conscious of the man behind him, but he did not need to
look again to know the man was Uko Nyakwai, the legendary Red Bear. So Quentin Hale had come here, to Québec, to the place of the French enemy. In itself perhaps not so extraordinary. The trappers and scouts, all the
coureurs de bois,
moved freely over the land; like the red men, they had little use for legal borders. But that it should be Quentin Hale who brought the Franciscans the treasure they had all been waiting for was extraordinary. Père Antoine signed himself with the cross. The ways of God were truly remarkable … Lantak had sent word that the raid had been successful. He was claiming the two hundred livres he was owed.